Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has urged people to read the Colm McCarthy report “carefully and critically” and to avoid “knee-jerk and defensive reactions to each and every suggestion” raised.
He called on people to accept “that the old ways of doing things need to be looked at afresh” and said a considered and honest debate of the specific policy options set out in the report was needed.
Mr Lenihan pointed to the extremely difficult budgetary position as the context for the special group’s findings.
He said the Government had taken “resolute action to stabilise the public finances” since the beginning of the economic crisis last year but said that in spite of the measures already taken the budget deficit would increase by €20 billion.
“Quite simply continued borrowing at that level is not sustainable. Unless we as a state can continue to show good faith in correcting our public finances by putting them on a sustainable path, then the interest premium charged on our borrowing will escalate.
He said the group had presented some difficult policy options. “These are the choices that we as a people, and not just as public representatives and Government, will have to face up to in order to get this nation back on track, creating jobs, meeting public needs and promoting fairness, which we have proved we can do as a society over the last 20 years,” Mr Lenihan said.
Fine Gael's finance spokesman Richard Bruton said there was "a lot to be welcomed" in the report. He described it as "sensible and important" but said that the Government strategy needed to add a fresh focus on job creation.
He said “the success of the Irish economy" needed to be reinvented and said the cuts would have to work in hand with job creation.
